scarcely
part of speech
adverb (scarcely)
meaning for a pupil
1) Scarcely means hardly, almost not at all: «I could scarcely see» means I could only just see. tree →
2) Scarcely … when means that one thing happened almost straight after another. tree →
3) Scarcely can mean surely not: «You can scarcely blame him». tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories and the formal voice it shows something only just happened or almost did not happen. In reading tests pupils must notice it is a negative word: «scarcely any» means almost none. Phrases: «scarcely any», «scarcely ever», «could scarcely believe», «had scarcely … when».
examples
- It was so foggy that we could scarcely see the road. tree →
- There was scarcely any milk left. tree →
- I could scarcely believe my eyes. tree →
- We had scarcely sat down when the fire alarm rang. tree →
- She scarcely ever watches TV. tree →
- The baby is scarcely a week old. tree →
- You can scarcely blame him for being tired. tree →
- I scarcely know how I feel." tree →
note
Adverb from «scarce». It already has a negative meaning, so do not add «not»: «I could scarcely hear», not «I couldn't scarcely hear». In word problems «scarcely any» means almost zero. Formal inverted order: «Scarcely had we arrived when …».
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «scarcely» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.